AZADI आजादी آزادي

Next Thursday, within the context of The Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism at Cabaret Voltaire Zurich I will engage in a discussion with Francesca Recchia around the topic of AZADI. In this workshop we will collects materials, images andwill also invite Twitter users to contribute under the hashtag of  #AZADI. We will collect tweets, images, live interviews via Skype with different people. This material will be organized, collected and distributed in a DIY zine that can be made with a PDF. The map of AZADI shown here below will also be  presented. This displays the amount of people who use AZADI in both languages that are officially recognized by the national authorities and  languages that are not. Hope to see you there.

Thursday Jan, 19th, 2012 2 – 6 am The Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism: Azadi – آزادی – आज़ादी With Francesca Rechia and Antonio Scarponi

Azadi is a Persian word that means freedom, liberty, liberation, independence. The word has a long history and a beautiful geography. Its roots can be traced back to more than three thousand years ago, to the ancient Avestan language. From Persia, Azadi started travelling: it went far and reached Afghanistan, Pakistan and India where it seeped into the local languages and it is now of common use in Farsi, Kurdish, Pashto, Urdu and Hindi. Azadi is about liberation as much as it is about liberty and hence signifies both the struggle for and the achievement of freedom; it does not simply describe a target, but embodies a process. Azadi helps therefore reflecting on the relation between freedom and liberation, on the necessary struggle that is implied in the idea of the achievement of freedom and on the sense of a collective responsibility that such a struggle requires.The word, however, has ever too often been appropriated in the political discourse as a symbol of Islamist ideology, separatist movements and extremist politics.But is it so? How many people do use the word Azadi in a non ideological way? What is the power of this word and what are the contradictions it carries? From the perspectives of design and geopolitics, Antonio Scarponi and Francesca Recchia will engage with these questions addressing the manipulation of innocence and the ways in which ideological interpretations “shape” meaning and reality. In a participatory manner, the conversation will take place on the 19th of January from 2 to 6 pm CET at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich as part of the exhibition The Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism. This will be accompanied by the realisation of a demographic map that shows the amount of people who use the word Azadi on a daily base. The physical event will also take the shape of an Internet happening through Skype and Twitter (hash-tag #Azadi) opening the debate to different people who have been engaged in the struggle for Azadi and for whom Azadi is a daily word with a political – rather that politicised – meaning.

Related posts:

1. #ADAD. Coffee Break of a Revolution. Somewhere Between a Manifesto and a Santa Letter.
2. Human World
3. Human World as cover for an India China Institute publication.
4. How to Survive? Przetwory, Warsaw: Recycle Festival
5. READYKEA an Exhibition Device for DADA New York II: The Revolution to Smash Capitalism.